January 17, 2011

The Legend of Marketing Man

Basically, there are two types of men -- Feckless Weasels and Smelly Hairballs.

Your classic Feckless Weasel lives in Berkeley, drives a Subaru Outback, spends 80% of his time trying to please his shrill harridan of a wife, and wastes the other 20% of his life "reasoning" with his horrid children ("Now, Joshie, you remember we said that in a restaurant you shouldn't put your feet in other peoples' food...")

The Smelly Hairball has old banana peels in his golf bag, is at least three months behind in his alimony, has an expired driver's license and is quite fond of the phrase "I said, shut the fuck up!"

In the rich pageant of manhood there is, sadly, very little fertile ground between the Feckless Weasel and the Smelly Hairball.

There is, however, one exception -- Marketing Man.

Marketing Man is an imaginary character (or as we like to call him, a "target audience") who exists mainly in ad agency briefing documents and marketing department Powerpoint presentations.

Marketing Man is handsome and well-groomed. He is thoughtful and considerate. He is a close shaver. He coaches soccer and is concerned with his wife's feelings. He is helpful in the kitchen and undemanding in the bedroom. He keeps his closet neat and his weenie in his pants. In other words, he's a total fucking dork.

Well, Marketing Man now has an online place all to himself where he can gather with other Marketing Men and have conversations about...oh, I don't know...sauces?

It's a super-slick website called Man Of The House, sponsored by P&G. It's billed as "a man's guide to grooming, gadgets, fitness, relationships, clothes, parenting, careers & home repair." That's right, everything that makes contemporary life such a total pile of shit. (Couldn't they put in just a little about strippers, booze, weed and golf? Just a little?)

Here are some of the things you can learn this week at Man Of The House:

Ad Contrarian Says:

"Delusional thinking isn't just acceptable in marketing today -- it's mandatory.""Good ads appeal to us as consumers. Great ads appeal to us as humans."

"Social Media: Tens of millions of disagreeable people looking to make trouble."

"As an ad medium, the web is a much better yellow pages and a much worse television."

"Marketers prefer precise answers that are wrong to imprecise answers that are right."

"Brand studies last for months, cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and generally have less impact on business than cleaning the drapes."

"The idea that the same consumer who was frantically clicking her TV remote to escape from advertising was going to merrily click her mouse to interact with it is going to go down as one of the great advertising delusions of all time."

"Nobody really knows what "creativity" is. Every year thousands of people take a pilgrimage to find out. This involves flying to Cannes, snorting cocaine, and having sex with smokers."

"Marketers habitually overestimate the attraction of new things and underestimate the power of traditional consumer behavior."

"We don’t get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product."

"In American business, there is nothing stupider than the previous generation of management."

"If the message is right, who cares what screen people see it on? If the message is wrong, what difference does it make?"

"The only form of product information on the planet less trustworthy than advertising is the shrill ravings of web maniacs."

"There's no bigger sucker than a gullible marketer convinced he's missing a trend."

"All ad campaigns are branding campaigns. Whether you intend it to be a branding campaign is irrelevant. It will create an impression of your brand regardless of your intent."

"Nobody ever got famous predicting that things would stay pretty much the same."